In the United States, there are approximately 50 million people who wear dentures. These people have a higher-than-normal need to take care of their breath and to protect any remaining natural teeth. It is known that denture care products can deliver various denture care actives to the surface of the artificial teeth, thus providing both therapeutic and cosmetic benefits to consumers. For example, effervescent denture cleansing tablets, which require soaking the artificial teeth for a period of time, work to remove plaque and debris that have built up on the denture or plate. But such denture care products typically do not maintain the denture care actives in the oral cavity long enough to optimally enhance or prolong the therapeutic, prophylactic and/or cosmetic benefits provided by the actives, or they do not maintain a high concentration of the active against the denture surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,500,406, issued Dec. 31, 2002 to Rajaiah, et al., the substance of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a denture care composition that provides prolonged release of denture care actives. The Rajaiah patent discloses use of polybutene, which, while extremely substantive, can also be difficult to process, difficult and messy for consumers to handle, and expensive. Therefore, there remains a continuing need for easy-to-produce and easy-to-handle denture care compositions that can cheaply deliver denture care actives, such as breath-freshening ingredients or antimicrobials, over prolonged periods of time.